Financial Literacy Trust Act

Governor Sanford signed legislation enacting the Financial Literacy Trust Act of 2006, an initiative to develop, promote, and assist providers in serving financial literacy needs of students, teachers, and schools. The goals for the South Carolina Financial Literacy Initiative are to provide students in kindergarten through twelfth grade with tools they will need in the real world to manage their finances, to increase comprehensive services so students have reduced risk for financial failure after high school, and to promote high quality programs that provide instruction on pertinent financial literacy initiatives.

The legislation requires that financial literacy instruction be incorporated within current courses. To help districts and schools as they work with teachers to embed financial literacy standards in their lessons, our office would like to share two documents that include resources to support these efforts.

The second is a collection of resources pulled together by an ad hoc education advisory group of business leaders and educators who examined a variety of resources and summarized their findings to be shared with our teachers. Financial Education Resources

During the standards revision process, both the ELA and mathematics
teams considered how they can embed the financial literacy standards in
the revised academic content standards. While we have established a Web page to offer resources to teachers Financial Literacy Resources

Produced by ITV and ETV working with the Educational Arts Program of America, this new ITV series of nine short lessons is designed for grades 4–6 and focuses on economic empowerment for youth, teaching financial literacy in a fun format. The series encourages the piggy bank theory of saving and managing money. Pygg E. Bank (character puppet star) stands as a symbol of what a piggy bank represents for the new generation of economist.

The programs provide basic money management teaching on topics such as time and money equals investment and savings, financial success is a plan in action, developing a positive idea for financial gain, a money plan can economically take you from one status to the next, developing personal income by making opportunity, you are what you spend, setting short and long-term goals for finance, financial management is an attitude and character of success, and to spend or to save - a rainy day remedy. (The nine lessons are set up as a block all together with five seconds of black in between so all lessons can be easily accessed. Total running time of tape is 48:39.)

Lesson Titles Lesson Durations

1. Debt Eliminators 4:14

2. Inflation 5:30

3. The Money Plan 5:39

4. Close Encounters 5:11

5. The Personal Investment 5:14

6. The Power of the Purse 4:47

7. Money Mania 8:24

8. Money Matters 4:09

9. The Exchange 4:56

IPO – Investing Pays Off

Added to the ITV schedule in early 2005, this series of 15 two-minute reports features kids talking to kids about money. IPO was produced by NETworth Television Productions and funded by Merrill Lynch Global Philanthropy. Topics include saving, budgeting, learning how to manage credit, and philanthropy. The IPO - Investing Pays Off reports are recommended for upper elementary through high school students. Used in classrooms across the country, the series has won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. This series is new to StreamlineSC.

Since these short reports are each two minutes in duration, they are perfect to use in school news programs. Record the block feed for your school. Each lesson has classroom activities designed on three levels that can be accessed free at http://philanthropy.ml.com/ipo/resources/.

Financial Success Series

Two programs have been grouped to form a series entitled Financial Success Series in the ITV schedule. Designed for grades 9–12, Tools for Financial Success is lesson 1, which provides simple tools that anyone can use to improve his or her financial position. Lesson 2, entitled Credit and Credit Cards, offers students straight talk about responsible use of credit cards and given common errors to avoid. Both of these programs can be accessed in StreamlineSC by their individual titles.